


Out of the Blue

by SLWalker



Series: Midnight Blue [3]
Category: Midnight Blue - Fandom, due South
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 08:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1988:  How Mike meets his future wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sossity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sossity/gifts), [kalijean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalijean/gifts).



> Kalijean originally wrote the bit where Mike's following Cindy in the cruiser. <3

"Current Prime Minister?"

"Mulroney."

"Not a fan?"

"You could say that."

"Mm. Okay, look here."

Mike hated this part. The whole looking into the light thing. He could take a good guess that he probably didn't have a concussion, just from ample prior experience with getting knocked around, but since he had bled like a stuck pig all over himself and 380's paint job, he didn't have much of a choice in getting checked out.

At least Nipawin's ER was fairly quiet. Compared to any of them in the LMD.

"Looks good," the doctor said, taking the penlight away and leaving Mike to blink the spots out of his vision.

"Thanks."

"Any ringing in the ears, muffling, disturbances?"

"Not a one."

"All right, Corporal, up you go." The doctor didn't reach out, but looked ready to; Mike didn't need it, though. He hopped off the table, still holding the gauze to his head, though okay, yeah, he was maybe a little dizzy. Not bad, though. About like you'd expect to be when you got a window frame's corner in the head. "Stand on one foot," the doctor said, watching.

Mike did; he was a little dizzy, but his balance was all right. "Coordination next?"

The doctor raised an eyebrow, then shook his head with a dry expression. "Nose, ear, forehead, nose, chin."

"While I'm standing on one foot?"

"You can use both."

"Thanks." More acrobatics, this time with the hand that wasn't holding the gauze. Honestly, Mike just wanted to go back, clock out, go home and change clothes. Aside blood, there was mud, specks of drunken vomit and a few substances he didn't want to identify on his uniform; he was pretty sure it was unsalvageable at this point, and didn't feel like wearing it any longer than necessary.

He didn't wait to be told, before hopping back up on the table so his reflexes could be checked. He knew this drill intimately. He also got a little twinge of amusement at watching the doctor eyeball him for anticipating procedure ahead of time. Unable to resist, he grinned back.

Finally, it was all over and the doctor was peeling the gauze off. That wasn't so nice; it had stopped bleeding, but then it had half dried, and it was still pretty tender. Though, honestly, not as bad as it could have been. Three on one were odds even Mike didn't care for. He held obediently still while the doctor got a good look, and zoned out a little bit, just thinking about the call and how he could have gotten out of it without a trip to the ER. Which he gained by leaping out of the way of a stream of vomit and into the folding-out window frame.

Then again, given how he smelled right now, he thought maybe the blood sacrifice was worth the lack of getting even _more_ of it on him. He had to give the doctor credit; the man's nose didn't even wrinkle too much when he came in. Though, he saw a whole lot worse in his profession, so maybe he didn't need the credit or want it. Mike didn't care for it by any stretch of the imagination himself, but eventually, even vomit lost its power to turn his stomach when he dealt with it as regularly as he did.

Even so, he really wanted to go home and get a shower. Or at least out of his ruined uniform.

"Corporal Chase?"

"Hm?" Mike asked, blinking a few times and looking back at the doctor, who was eying him a little critically.

"You don't need any stitches. I'll send Nurse Swanson in to clean it up. Do you have someone to wake you up anyway?"

"But I don't have a concussion."

"Indulge me."

Mike pressed his mouth into a line, then huffed a little breath out of his nose. "I can have Sandburg check on me, I guess."

"Good."

Mike made a noncommittal noise back.

"And Corporal?"

"Yeah, doc?"

"Don't use gas station napkins as gauze next time, all right? You have a first aid kit, use it."

The man didn't wait for an answer, but Mike gave it to his retreating back anyway, grumbling, "You try cleaning blood out of a cruiser's upholstery."

 

 

Nurse Swanson was older; pretty, in a way, but not really Mike's type. Especially since she was closer to his mother's age than his. Nipawin's prospects for dates were pretty limited from what he could tell; sometimes he thought maybe he caught a woman looking twice at him, but then he had no idea how to approach, and she never did, and then where did that leave him? Dateless. That, and working afternoon shift generally wasn't that good for scoring dates _anyway_. Well, okay, so maybe it wasn't too bad, you got to meet a lot of people, but how do you take someone out to dinner when you work right through it and don't get off work until almost midnight? Not counting paperwork, which could stretch well into the wee hours.

Besides, just because he'd decided this place wasn't so bad didn't mean he planned on being here too long. Even so, a little company would have been nice. The last time he'd been on a date was almost a year ago, and she had been real nice, but he didn't even manage to rate a good night kiss or a call back. He decided that was the last time -- of many times -- when he let himself be set up with a coworker's sister. Because they all had sisters, and they all wanted their sisters to marry Mounties, and Mike was about the only one who was still eligible and in the right age range, and if he had to look at one more teased hairdo and one more set of press-on nails longer than his _fingers_ , he was going to decide to marry his career. He just was.

At least Nurse Swanson didn't make small talk. That was nice. Mike could just let his mind drift. It stung a little as she cleaned around the cut in his head, but at least she didn't go threatening to shave the patch of hair it was in. She rinsed it out over a bowl, with one of those squeezer bottles, and he endured it without a sound.

He was just about to go when another nurse popped her head around the curtain. "Judy? I'm going to need your help on 200, when you get a minute."

"Be done in a minute, Cindy," Nurse Now-Named-Judy said back.

Mike offered a faint smile in that direction. And then it fell right off his face.

_Holy cow._

No teased hair or pressed on nails. A messy blonde ponytail, and scrubs; no makeup, no nothing, but her _eyes_...

She offered a generic reassuring smile back, then disappeared.

"Whoa, Corporal, where are you going?"

"Hm?" Mike asked, forcing his head from where it was and looking first at the hand pressing on his shoulder and then the nurse it was connected to.

"Sit down. I've got a minute left."

He fidgeted the whole time.

 

 

There was a fidgeting axe-murder victim waiting for her.

Needless to say, Cindy Mason was a little taken aback. Coming out from helping turn a patient and finding that was a heck of a way to make a woman pause and wonder if she'd just walked into a scene from a monster movie.

She knew it was the Mountie who'd come in, but it took a moment. "Can I help you, Corporal...?"

"Mike," he answered, grinning, making him look even more deranged than he already looked. It was a sort of dazed looking grin, too; God, if he was in that kind of shape, why did he have his release papers in one grimy hand? "I, uh..."

"Corporal, are you sure you're okay to drive home?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. He looked... she wasn't sure how he looked. Like he might faint. She would have probably tried to further diagnose him, but then the _stench_ hit her, and she made a face.

"Uh, yeah." He winced when she made that face, taking a step back and gesturing a little with the papers. "I mean, I'm good to drive. I was... I mean, I wanted..."

Cindy raised both eyebrows, waiting.

"Would you have dinner with me?"

_What?!_

There was a very long moment, and she asked, cautiously, "Now...?"

Corporal Calls-Himself-Mike -- nametag says Chase -- blinked back at her like he didn't get the question, then gestured again, "No, not now. But maybe tomorrow? Or the day after. Or whenever you want."

Oh. He was one of _those_. Cindy sighed, her eyes falling closed for a moment. Getting hit on was far too regular an occurrence. Didn't matter if they'd just had open heart surgery, or if she'd just changed their bedpans; often, they were particularly obnoxious after a sponge-bath. Now it was spreading to patients she didn't even _treat_. She opened her eyes and gave him a stern little thin-lipped smile. "Corporal Chase, I think you need to go home and get some rest."

He blinked a few more times, confused, mustache twitching once and highlighting the fact that he somehow even managed to get blood in _it_ , then he nodded. "I'm going to. Will you?"

Seriously? He was asking again? Cindy just blinked back at him for a long moment, not quite getting why her tone wasn't enough to shut him down. "No. Go home."

"Okay." Chase gestured again, then a lightbulb finally turned on over his head and he offered her a smile, surprisingly sweet amidst the general carnage. "Bad time, I get it. Thanks. I mean, not that you... well, I'll see you around." 

Cindy watched him go, and then shook it off and went back to work.

 

 

"Nnngh."

_"Morning, Corp. Still alive?"_

Mike dropped his hand off of the phone, leaving it laying half against his mouth and loosely resting somewhere about his temple. The _last_ thing he wanted to hear was Sandburg's smoke-rough voice. Geez, was it even light out yet? Mike didn't feel like prying his eyes open enough to look. He didn't even manage to get home, cleaned up and into bed before three, and it sure didn't feel like he'd been asleep long enough.

_"I don't want to take the battering ram to your door."_

"Don't you dare, won't get my security back," Mike managed to mumble. "M'fine. Time is it?"

_"Eight. See you when you come in."_

"Nn."

The line clicked off and Mike fell back to sleep, all the way until the disconnection signal blasted him in the ear.

After putting it back on the cradle, he staggered out of bed long enough to hit the toilet, then get himself a glass of water. His head ached, and he could feel where there was a proper knot now, to go with the sore. Mild neck ache, too. He palmed over his face, eying himself in the mirror. Looked about like he felt; half-dead and ready to crawl back into his nice, warm bed until his alarm clock properly woke him up to face another day in Small Town Saskatchewan. Maybe this time if he was lucky, he wouldn't nearly get puked on and land himself...

Wait.

 _Cindy._ That was her name. He didn't get her last name, though.

Utterly despite how he felt, Mike grinned.

Cindy. Cindy. With the blue-green eyes and the messy ponytail.

Cindy.

He crawled back into bed, stretching out and wondering if she'd say yes next time. He was still grinning a little goofily when he fell back to sleep.

 

 

Well, at least he didn't look like someone took a hatchet to him this time.

It had been four days since the surreal and slightly disturbing encounter with her axe-murder victim. Honestly? Cindy almost didn't recognize him.

"Hi," he said, standing at the nurses station with his hat in hand, impeccably groomed aside his hair being slightly ruffled, presumably from the hat. Far sight better, but Cindy still wasn't quite sure what to make of the unexpected visit.

"Follow up?" she asked, not bothering with the greeting. Halfway hoping that maybe he was just out of his mind when he asked her out, and his only reason for being here was to make sure that the blow to the head hadn't knocked a few screws _permanently_ loose.

"No." Chase raised his eyebrows, smiling sort of sheepishly, though the way he was watching her face suggested that her halfway hope was a no hope. "I was wondering if now was a better time."

"I'm on duty." She eyed his uniform. "So are you."

"I don't mean _now_ ," he said, turning his hat in his hands in apparently absent-minded motion. "Just whenever."

"Look, Corporal--"

"Mike."

 _"Corporal,"_ she said, firmly, looking him in the eye, "I'm on duty. I don't have time to make dinner dates with Mounties."

She hoped this time, she made it clear when she turned and walked away, leaving him blinking after her with his mouth hanging open.

Well. Halfway hoped. He did look a lot better today.

 

 

"Again?" Cindy asked, eying the Mountie on the bed as he was getting half a dozen stitches on the inside of his bottom lip.

Obviously, Chase couldn't answer. At least, that was what she thought, until he managed to get his notebook out of his pocket and scrawl on it, _Dinner?_

She rolled her eyes and walked back out, trying to stuff down a smile. Well, at least he was consistent. It was the sixth time he'd asked.

 

 

"You bring such nice presents."

This time, Chase wasn't laid up himself. Instead, it was the very drunk, very sick guy who had crashed his car that was brought in. Chase was waiting outside of the curtain, standing by while the drunk was being checked out, and had beamed at her the moment she came around the corner.

"I could bring flowers instead," he answered, grinning. "Or, I could take you to dinner."

Cindy dropped her head and sighed, shaking her head and smiling. Number ten.

 

 

"Shouldn't you be out catching the bad guys?" Cindy kept her pace down the street, arms crossed, glancing over now and again, but not too much.

Chase kept up with her, mostly coasting, occasionally hitting the gas. Unless one counted that which came out of his mouth, in which case he was constantly hitting the gas. She knew he was gearing up for the fourteenth attempt to ask her out.

"Nope. Caught 'em all yesterday so I could focus on you."

"Uh huh. Are you following me, Corporal?"

He idled the cruiser to the curb, put it in park and hopped out. "Can't we be going in the same direction?"

Cindy stopped, turning around without uncrossing her arms; he leaned on the roof of his cruiser, grinning at her like he was clever. "You were going in the _other_ direction, stopped, turned around and followed me. Don't you realize that's a little creepy, Chase?"

"Hey, you didn't call me Cor-- it is?" His eyebrows wavered.

"A little bit." Cindy huffed out a breath, but honestly, she couldn't say she was too angry about it. Okay. Maybe not really angry at all. It was more like being followed by a stray dog than it was by a stalker. "Listen: I just broke up with my fiance a few months ago, it was miserable, I'm not ready to start dating again and I really don't want to be followed home by random guys I met in the _hospital_. Okay?"

After a long moment, face fallen, Chase nodded. It was probably the most serious expression she'd ever seen on him; most of the time, he acted more like a goofy teenager with a crush than a fully grown adult. "Yeah." He nodded, clearly crestfallen, then offered her a bit of a sympathetic half-smile. But he didn't say anything else, just nodded again, gave her a wave and got back in the cruiser.

Aside passing him on the road occasionally when she was driving, or seeing him on patrol, he stayed away.

 

 

Cindy was starting to wonder if he'd ever come back again. If he would show back up in a few weeks, and ask her out. Or if he would see her on the road and do more than offer a wave. She realized one day, on her way home from work, that she listened for his name while she was on shift. That she'd gotten to kind of look forward to those random -- or not so random -- encounters. Well, not him getting _hurt_ , but the way he looked at her. Like he couldn't quite take his eyes off of her. It took her awhile to realize that earnest sincerity was actually earnest and actually sincere.

One morning when she was off work, she watched him talking to the cashier at the grocery store checkout, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, his brown hair ruffled and a good-natured look on his face. Sized him up. She watched for a moment, and something in her warmed when she realized that he didn't look at the very perky, pretty cashier anything like he looked at her.

 

 

One day, when he drove past with the window down in the summer air and gave her a little wave, she called out, "Afternoon, Mike!"

The way his face lit up made her smile the rest of the day.

 

 

It didn't hurt anything that his ass looked good in a pair of faded blue jeans and that he had gorgeous eyes, either.

 

 

"Do all Mounties get themselves hurt as much as you do?" she asked, and she didn't even try to keep the fond note out of her voice this time.

"I'm special," Mike quipped back, though strained. She hoped, for his sake, that his ribs were only bruised and not broken.

"Apparently," Cindy said, pulling the chair over and taking a seat. She'd just finished her shift, she could probably have slipped out without him ever knowing she was there, but...

No. She didn't want to. Not even a little.

Mike gave her a faint little half-smile, then went back to breathing as steadily as pain would allow, eyes closed. Everything in her wanted to reach out and touch him, do something to take that strain off of his face, and it wasn't the part of her that made her a good nurse that wanted that.

"I thought you were a concussed, deranged axe-murder victim," she said, finally.

Mike opened his eyes, one eyebrow going way up at her, incredulously. Though, there was some amusement there, too. "Axe-murder victim? _Deranged?_ Wow."

"I guess it would technically be attempted axe-murder," she answered, smiling some.

He chuckled, though it made him wince. "Nah, I ran into a window frame."

"Well, you're going to have to be more careful." Cindy reached out, finally, rubbing up and down his forearm, earning a baffled, pleased sort of look. "Because when I have a dinner date, _Corporal_ , I don't want to miss it because my date's in the hospital again. I see this place enough while I'm working, too, so I don't want to have to spend any extra time here when I'm not working."

Mike stared at her like he couldn't believe what he was hearing, and then huffed a shocked little breath.

"So, when are we going out?" she asked.

Mike took a few more shallow breaths, dazed, staring at her with that look like she might just be the center of the universe. And then he smiled, something purely infectious that she couldn't help answering. "Wow. Cindy. Whenever you want."

She gave him a squeeze on the forearm, then grinned back. "After the x-ray."


End file.
